Jeff gripped the steering wheel of the car tightly, his knuckles white. They'd been travelling for about an hour and were into the hills. They were following a route known as the Northwest Pass.
His mother noticed his knuckles and the tense muscles around his jaw line. 'This trip is no picnic' she reflected. "Why don't we play 'I Spy'?" she suggested to the back seat.
Three young heads looked up from where they were having an argument over some toy.
"Yeah. Let's play 'I Spy'," John said eagerly.
"Yeah, 'I Spy', 'I Spy'," Virgil chipped in eagerly.
"Aw. That's dumb," Scott said.
"Dumb!" Virgil repeated what his brother had said, frowned, and asked, "What's 'I Spy'?"
Scott rolled his eyes. "Don't you know anything? You think of something you can see, say 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with' and then say the first letter of what you can see. Then everyone else has to guess what you've seen."
Virgil thought about what his brother had said. "I don't get it."
"Look, Virgil," John was trying to be helpful. "You see something, like a shoe. Then you say 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with S'. Then we keep on saying words beginning with S until one of us says shoe. Then whoever guesses right has a turn."
"Oh!" Virgil appeared to understand. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with S."
Scott groaned. "Shoe!"
"Yes!" Virgil bounced happily in his car seat. "Your turn, Scott."
"You're not meant to think of shoe. Think of something else."
"I'll go," John offered. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with R."
"Shoe!" offered Virgil.
"Shoe starts with S, not R. Boy, you're stupid."
"Scott!" his father admonished without taking his eyes off the road.
"Ring?" Grandma Tracy offered.
"Nope!"
"Road?" Jeff tried.
"No."
"Ribbon?" Jeff hazarded.
"No."
"Rope?"
"Nope, Grandma!"
"Piano?" Virgil offered.
"Piano starts with P not R. Anyway where can you see a piano here?" Scott hit Virgil.
Jeff happened to be looking in the mirror at that point. "Scott. You know not to hit your brother. Apologise to him."
"He's not playing it properly."
"And neither are you. You haven't made any suggestions."
"That's cause this is dumb. It's radio."
"How'd you know?" John asked.
"Cause you haven't put the stupid thing down since we'd left."
"Scott guessed it. It's his turn," Virgil sang happily.
Scott ignored him. "Aren't we there yet?"
"What already?" Jeff muttered under his breath. Out loud he said, "No we've got another couple of hours to go yet."
"Great," Scott was not impressed.
"I could radio Grandpa's car and see where they are," John offered.
"You could try." Jeff tried to be supportive, "but in these hills you may not be able to reach them."
The other car was miles ahead. Grandpa Tracy was surprised to hear a squawk emitting from his shirt pocket. Taking one hand off the wheel he fished in the pocket and pulled out John's handset. Warily he pushed the button that activated it. "Hello?"
"Hi, Grandpa." John's voice came out of the receiver.
His Grandfather glanced at Lucille in surprise. "Well what do you know? The thing actually works."
"Here let me take it, Pa. You need to concentrate on the road." She took the radio and spoke into it. "Hello, Johnny. Grandpa's driving so you'll have to talk to me."
"Hi, Ma… No, Scott. It's mine. You can't have it!"
Lucille rolled her eyes. "Sounds like it's started."
"Probably started from the moment they left. Scott's getting an attitude problem."
Lucille sighed. "I know. His grades are dropping and he's getting into trouble at school. I don't know the best way to deal with it."
Her father-in-law raised an eyebrow. "What does Jeff say about it all?"
"I haven't discussed it with him. He doesn't know most of it."
"Do you think that's wise?"
"Jeff's due to go to the moon again in two months. I want his full attention on the job; I don't want him worrying about anything else. As soon as he's safely back on earth, then I'll discuss it with him."
"Hi, Ma." The object of their discussion broke into the conversation.
"Hello, Scott."
"Hi, Ma." Virgil's voice sounded distant.
"You don't hold it that way, she won't hear you. Turn it around!" They could hear Scott ordering his brother.
"Oh. HI, MA!"
Lucille held the handset away from her ear. "Hello, darling. You don't have to shout so loud."
"We've got a handset each, so we can all talk to you!" John said, excitement clear in his voice.
"How far behind us are you?" Lucille asked.
There was a murmur in the background. "We left about ¾ of an hour after you. Where are you?"
"We're about half way through the Northwest Pass. It's beautiful. There's snow on all the hills. It's fallen early this year."
"Grandma wants to know how Gordon and Alan are?" Scott's voice chipped in.
"Both sound asleep. It's lovely and quiet."
Jeff and his mother glanced at each other enviously.
"I learnt a new game," Virgil told his mother. "It's called 'Eye's Pie'."
"That's 'I Spy', and he plays it all wrong," Scott was grumbling again.
"Shoe!" Virgil said happily and moved a switch on his handset. The radio turned off with a squeak.
"Now you can't talk with Ma. Serves you right," Scott told him.
"Ma? Where are you, Ma?" Virgil asked into the now dead radio.
"Turn it on for him please, Scott," Lucille asked.
Grudgingly Scott acceded to her request.
"John, your grandfather tells me that you made the radios better. How?" Lucille sought to bring her second oldest back into the conversation.
"Oh, I just…"
There was a scream from the three receivers in the back seat.
"What the heck was that?" Jeff pulled the car over to the side of the road.
"Jeff! That sounded like Lucille." His mother looked concerned.
Jeff leant over the back of his seat. "Scott, let me have your set." He spoke into the toy radio. "Lucille! Can you hear me? What happened?"
There was silence.
"Try the mobile, Jeff," his mother urged.
Jeff got his more conventional phone from the glove box and dialled. "The reception's no good", he said grimly.
"I'm sure it's nothing," Grandma Tracy sought to be reassuring.
The toys sparked back into life. "J-Jeff?" In the background they could hear a deep moaning and a child crying.
"I'm here, Lucille. What's happened?"
"A-An avalanche. It seemed as if the entire mountainside come down on top of us. I-I can't see anything."
"What do you mean can't see…?"
"We're buried, buried in snow." She was starting to sound hysterical.
"Lucille, calm down. Take a deep breath. Is it dark?"
"Y-yes."
"There's a flashlight in the glove compartment. Can you get it out?" While she was looking he gave his mobile to his mother. "Call the emergency services."
Lucille came back on the radio. "Oh, Jeff. The side of the car's caved in. Y-Your father's hurt."
Jeff took a deep breath and gave his mother's hand a reassuring squeeze. "How bad?"
"I can't really tell. Part of the car's on top of him."
"How're the boys?" Jeff noticed that his mother was frantically trying without success to reach the emergency services. His three sons were sitting motionless in the back seat aware that something bad had happened.
"T-They seem to be okay."
"Have you turned the car's motor off?"
"Y-yes."
"Fine, Honey. We're coming to get you. We'll be there soon. We're getting help now. Don't worry." Hoping that he sounded calm and reassuring, he handed the radio to his mother and gunned the car's motor. "Hang on everyone. This is going to be a fast trip. Keep trying, Ma, hopefully the reception will be better around the corner." He floored the accelerator and the car leaped away from the side of the road, for a moment they were airborne.
"Is Ma all right?" A plaintive voice was heard from the back seat.
"S-she's in a bit of trouble, but she'll be fine, Virgil," his Grandma tried to reassure him as the car careered around a corner. "They all will." She resumed desperately trying to get the emergency services.
She'd only just succeeded when they came upon the avalanche. A seemingly impenetrable wall of snow greeted them.
Jeff stamped on the brakes and leapt out of the car, saying the very word he'd admonished Scott for using earlier.
His sons looked at each other. If their father was saying things like that, things were bad – very bad.